It's 112 Degrees in Delhi, and Civility Is Setting In

Article excerpt

It is 3:30 p.m. in the visa section of the South African High
Commission in New Delhi, and a crowd of 30 or so visa-seekers stands
quietly outside the shuttered windows, waiting for the appointed
hour.

The temperature outside is hot even by Delhi standards, about
44.8 degrees Celsius, or as Americans would say, 112 degrees
Fahrenheit. There is no air conditioning in the waiting room of the
visa section, just ceiling fans that push the hot noiseless air
around.

Finally, like the opening gates of the Kentucky Derby, the
shutters open, with just one visa counselor behind them. The crowd
makes its way to this person's window, and when the counselor moves
to another window, almost as if pacing, the crowd tries to move with
her. There is no pretense of a line - everyone knows there is just
one hour to pick up his finished visa before closing time. And yet,
there is not one complaint.

After five summers in India, I've come to the conclusion that
summertime brings out the best in the Indian character: patience.
Mahatma Gandhi tapped this quality to encourage his mass of
followers to stop cooperating with the British colonists until the
British just left.

Theoretically, when temperatures soar past the hundred mark,
tempers should soar too, but not in India.

Roadside fender benders usually end with shrugs and sighs rather
than fists. Slow-moving queues dissolve into sullen crowds.

It's an attitude I can easily understand. It's just too hot to
get angry. Blast-furnace heat encourages meditation, not tantrums.

Officially, an Indian summer stretches from late March until
early October, but this comes in two distinct parts. One comes
before the monsoon rainy season, from around March until late June.
The monsoon is a joyous break in the middle, and the inspiration for
every wet-sari scene in every Hindi movie ever made. The second part
comes along to wipe away the humidity of the monsoon, the way a
teacher's rebuke wipes off the smirk from a student's face.

Indians call the dual season garmiyan, literally "the hots."
Travel agents and hoteliers have another word for it: the "exodus. …